This is business as usual in New Orleans, where corruption is "endemic" and "notorious." We devoted an entire chapter of DONKEY CONS to examining how the Democratic Party's death-grip control of urban politics leads to corruption, rampant crime, and entrenched poverty. This pattern can be seen most clearly in Detroit, but has also plagued other Democrat-dominated cities, including pre-Giuliani New York and Washington, D.C., under the reign of Marion Barry.

What's truly tragic about this is that the urban poor -- whose lives are made desperately miserable by the policies of corrupt Democrats -- remain the most loyal Democratic Party constituency. The politicians enrich themselves while impoverishing their constituents, and the constituents love them for it!